Friday, March 30, 2012

Above is a short clip of the hill work we did today. (Ignore the airplane overhead and the choppy video.) These hills were after the pace changers, but before the endless relay. RyanK is closest to the camera, and ZachY is behind him. The point of this video is to illustrate good arms. RyanK has been working super hard for almost a year and a half on his upper body form, and today it was really shining through. No pause at the top of the arm swing, no breaking of the plane across his body, and no bending of the elbow. Those powerful quick arm strides means he has powerful legs underneath him powering him up that hill. Great job RyanK!!

Overall, I though we had a great week of practice. We had a super successful day on Monday, a fantastic day on Wednesday, and a really heard and deep set of workouts today. It was a great week of training, and the long run tomorrow is going to bring it all together. Don't neglect the long run, push yourself in a different way (not a speed way, but a duration way) for one more day. Make this week of training the nest one we have had all year!

Also, take the time to do all of the little things that champions do in order to make all of the big things we have done this week stick in your system efficiently. Stay super hydrated, eating lots of fruits and vegetables and get a good nights sleep every night. Ice your legs, stretch, and repeat positive thoughts to yourself. Those are all great things to do to make you reach your potential.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Tomorrow, we will have an organized practice at the CHAP track. Kenyan Kilos, I would bring your track spikes or your inbetween shoes. No trainers. We tried this workout a few weeks ago and failed, so hopefully this time around it goes more successfully.

If you cannot make it to practice, I would recommend a 45-60 min fartlek. Try and run on trails or dirt roads, and try and get between 10-15 short bursts of speed in. Vary the length of the speed interval, from between 15 seconds to two minutes.

Let's hope for nice sunny weather with not wind tomorrow, and I will see everyone at 10:00 sharp!

Monday, March 26, 2012

Every year, during Spring Break, we do three minute eggs, a workout that is traditionally the hardest one of the early season. Every year, we run about 400 meters, sometimes on grass, sometimes on snow; sometimes with a large hill, sometimes on the flats, sometimes we run in fast shoes, sometimes in trainers over uneven ground, sometimes it is calm, sometimes (like today) it is super windy. But, every year, it is a really tough practice, and every year, the athletes step up and lay down an excellent workout.

I tried to keep track today of how many three minute eggs each athlete ran with no breaks, and this is my (unofficial) list:

What was really impressive was how the kids who finished up early went down the backstretch and cheered on the kids that were still hammering them out.

Overall, it was an excellent morning of work for everyone!

SEP

P.S. Just heard from afternoon practice, 40 mph winds or higher has made practice almost impossible. Although judging from these pics, practice looked pretty hard this morning. Thanks Susan, these are great shots!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

The first thought on my mind is Thing2 is due any day now. If you get a text in the middle of the night with a change of plans, then I am pre-occupied. :)

I thought we had a really good meet yesterday, even with some kids having a hard interval workout on Friday. Complete results can be found on co.milesplit.com, but I counted at least forty new 2012 season bests on our team. That is excellent. As Coach Monfre always says, you can't do any better than your best! Great job Wolverines!

CastleView Invite meet pictures are already up, check out the fantastic shots on www.flashndashphotography.com See if you can find the one of Ol' Coach Maroney demonstrating perfect vaulting technique.

We do not have a meet this week, so follow your individual coaches instructions on what do to on Saturday and Sunday. And, if you are confused as to what practice you need to attend, communicate with your coach!

With the first third of the season behind us, now is the time coaches start moving some athletes around to focus them on events where we can score the most points as a team. As I have mentioned before, there is no point in having six great milers, but no good 300 hurdlers. (That is not the case for us, it is just an example!) I think we are really coming together as a team, both men and women, but I still think we can improve and to do that we need the best athletes to be competing as much as possible.

Enjoy your Sunday off, but make sure to be active somehow. Monday's are a crucial day of training for us!

Friday, March 23, 2012

I was pretty happy with how everything went at the JV meet yesterday. I didn't get to see ANY of the field events, but I witness all of the track events, and also saw tons of varsity kids pitching in to help out with the meet. It was great to see all CHAP athletes cheering, supporting and working to make this JV meet well-run and smooth. The opposing coaches all commented on how well the meet was carried out, and that is a tribute to all the athletes who pitched in.

I just crunched all of the results, mailed them out, and updated our season best lists. Here are some results that stood out to me.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Today, Thursday, is our sub-varsity meet. All athletes will be there right after school to either compete or help out with the meet.

Tomorrow, Friday, we will have practice at ten o'clock. (Hunger Games is coming out tonight, so we will delay practice a little bit. But, I want to go early to try and avoid the wind.) Intervals, maybe on the track, or maybe across the street on the grass. Not sure yet.

Saturday, varsity meet at Sports Authority Stadium. All athletes should be there well before their event starts, but I would love to see everyone there bright and early to support your teammates.

Sunday is a "day off", but you really need to go out for a run on your own. Sitting around all day Sunday will result in poor training on Monday, as we saw a few days ago.

Spring Break practices are not mandatory. The are voluntary, but they are beneficial. All of them will start at 10:00 in the morning, do not be late.

Monday-Meet at Sierra with trainers or XC shoes for 3 minute eggs.Tuesday-No organized practice, but you need to go for a 50-70 min run on your own, with 10 50 meter accelerations afterwards.Wednesday-Meet at CHAP Track with fast shoes for some Kenyan intervalsThursday-No organized practice, but you need to go for a 20 min run on your own.Friday-Meet at CHAP track, I want to practice hand-offs as well as slingshots.Saturday-No meet this week, you need to go for a looooooonnnnnggg overdistance run, at least 70-90 minutes on your own. Try and meet up with a teammate, that will make the run a lot more enjoyable.Sunday-Easy recovery run, so we can practice well on Monday.

We need to work hard over spring break, because a hard week of training over Spring Break, coupled with a hard week of training this week, as well as an easier week of training after Spring Break, will result in tremendous growth and speed increases. Just in time for the real meat of the track season.

And of course, keep your phones handy. You might get a text with alternate plans, as Thing2 could make an apperance at anytime! :)

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

More details on who is running what at our home sub-varsity meet will be forthcoming tomorrow at practice. No matter if you are running or not, everyone will be there to help on Thursday right after school.

SEP

EDIT: One slight change, the girls 4 x 800 will go Janey to Laura to Jessie to Julia. Laura will not run the open 800 later that day.

Monday, March 19, 2012

When I got home today, Beth asked me how practice was. I replied, after thinking for a moment, with "Interesting..." Because what happened today was little different than the norm.

We had a great Monday meeting. Re-instated relays, honored a proud Wolverine of the Week winner, outlined out next few weeks of training and goals. We then head outside, but it went from sunny & calm to cold & windy in the blink of an eye. Ugh. However, 1100 m orange pace intervals were still on tap, and we were going to do them no matter what the weather.

Well, we ran those intervals horribly. I think only two or three kids were constantly hitting their times, everyone else was slow, and I mean real slow. Slow enough for me to be screaming at them from across the track, interrupting soccer practice with my bellowing voice. Eventually, I just stopped all of them mid-interval and told them to hit the hill, which the sprinters were already on with Coach Able and Coach Wright. I honestly don't know what went wrong. Too hard of intervals, lack of conditioning on Sunday, the crummy weather; but we were not hitting it at all. The effort was there, but it wasn't enough.

The hill was about 20 m of flat, into 15 meters of steep up, into about 35 meters of more flat. It ran from the lower field onto the upper field. The pace was simple, as hard as you can go. The sprinters were already about half way done their hills, before the distance kids joined in. And I was so mad, it quickly turned into that scene from Miracle, where the coach keeps blowing his whistle, making them do suicides across the ice over and over and over again. The kids would get back to the line, I would scream "GO!" and they would hammer up that hill again. Boys first, then girls. No distinction between sprinters or distance, just all boys then all girls. "GO! GO! GO! GO!"

Finally, after quite a few all-out hill sprints, I announced, "Practice is officially over, you can all go home now." I waited a few seconds. No one moved. Then I yelled "GO!" again. And the kids went hard, up that hill like they were running from the cops, as Coach Laster used to say. They came back down. I made the same announcement. No response. I yelled "GO!". Commence hill hammering. This cycles repeated for a good 15 minutes or so. By that time, I was at the finish hurdle, and Coach Able was yelling "GO!". It carried on for at least 3-4 more long sprints before the lacrosse coach came over.

After conferring with her, I grabbed the finish hurdle, announced that the lacrosse team needs the upper field, and that track practice was over. Coach Able, Coach Wright and I headed towards the cube. But, the team kept going, first the guys, then the girls. Over and over and over again. I was far away, putting in the cube before the lacrosse coach had to ask them to stop, as they really needed the field. But then, the hurdlers went to do more hurdler drills, the sprinters went into the weight room, and the distance kids moved over to the parking lot hill, where they did who-knows-how-many more hills. I was in a state of shock and disbelief, to be honest. But, I was psyched! This practice rapidly turned from being about a coach hammering his athletes for lack of interval prowess to a practice about athletes coming together and showing that they can be true champions. I was not the leader, not in charge; I was totally out of the picture. The athletes took it upon themselves to dedicate and to work and to not give up, and it was a fantastic thing to witness.

I finally had to stop the distance kids , and when I stopped them, I was very proud of them. I was proud of all the kids, the sprinters, the hurdlers, the whole lot of them. I saw a lot of character today, I saw a lot of intrinsic motivation to uphold the Chaparral tradition and reach your individual potential. I saw leaders grow up in the span of an hour. I saw runners killing themselves to get up that hill. The old cliche of "character is who you are and what you do when no one is watching" rang very true today. No one had to do those extra hills (and the extra was far greater than the mandatory) but no one quit. No one showed weakness, all showed mental toughness. All gained immensely from today.

It was pretty cool, to be honest. Would I rather have been able to hit 1100 m intervals perfectly, sure. But am I happy with the character, dedication and determination? A lot, I am happy with it a lot. That is the kind of work we need every day, and that is the kind of work that makes us champions. Good job Wolverines, the coaching staff is very proud of all of you.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

I am pretty tired right now, from updating training paces, to emailing all the coaches with our excellent season bests, to planning out next weeks workouts; but I wanted to get one post about today before St. Patrick's Day was over.

Excellent job by John Reyes and his ThunderRidge staff for putting on a great meet. Just a great job all-around by them.

I was pleased with the results we had, especially on the girls distance side. But what I was more impressed with was the team spirit, the enthusiasm, and the support shown by all Wolverine athletes today. Today was a excellent day for all of us in our development towards becoming champions, and I hope we can build on that next week in practice to do some more damage at the Whitenack Invite in one week.

Great job everyone, and I mean that. Enjoy your day off, be ready to work hard on Monday!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

This past week or so has been as stressful one, to say the least, for CHAP T&F. But, I think things are turning around, and one sign of that is the fantastic results posted today by the sub-varstiy runners at Ponderosa. Not only did many huge improvements occur, the athletes represented the program, the school and their community perfectly. I was very, very proud of them. It was a great day.

Her are some of the great improvements posted by the Wolverines today.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

This year we have a great parent taking all of our track pictures for us! Sheri McHenry-Lynch (Gavin's mom) has been taking photos for us for a couple of years now, and she now puts them up on a slick new website.

The website is: flashndashphotography.com, and you can view and purchase photos right from that website. There are football and lacrosse pics there, but the track pics are on the front page as well.

Every time Sheri updates, I will re-post this blog, so everyone can get the latest and greatest shots! I will also place this blog on the sidebar in the important links, so it is front and center.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The line-ups for the ThunderRidge Invite are set. We are not running any relays this weekend. Any athlete not on this chart will be attending the sub-varsity meet at Ponderosa on Thursday afternoon. The varsity meet starts at 8:30 on Saturday, please be there early and ready to compete.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Above are the final line-ups for the League Relays. As I mentioned in an earlier post, relays are not simply the top four, especially this early in the season. The coaching staff is still trying to figure out who does what best, whiteout overdoing anyone the first week of competition.

If you do not find your name on this its, then the Friday sub-varstiy meet at Doug Co. HS is where you will be showcasing your skills, in an attempt to run/jump/throw your way into the Saturday meets.

More details will be forthcoming about this, but since we do not have a bus, we will expect each athlete to be at Sports Authority Stadium at least two hours before their first scheduled track event. (Or 7:45 am for all field events.)

Let's continue working hard this week, to prepare for our first "real" meets of the season!

Monday, March 5, 2012

I received a few phone calls about the uniforms that were handed out tonight.

I want to take the time to clear up any misconceptions. There's a couple reasons the uniforms were distributed the way they were:

After spending two days in the cage over winter break doing inventory, it was discovered that we had many more speed suits than we did two piece uniforms. Whether this was due to kids not returning the uniforms in May, uniforms wearing out, or uniforms getting up and walking away in the night, there were almost three times as many speed suits as two piece uniforms. With five events being "sprint-based" (400m, 300H, 200m 110H, 100m) as well as three additional relays in those events where the uniforms have to match, it makes sense to give out the speed suits to the sprinters.

With the number of women we have, there was no need to make a distinction between varsity and sub-varsity, field events and track events. All women received the same uniform, the sharp looking white top with red shorts.

I want to strongly recommend purchasing a pair of compression shorts (black for men, white for women) to wear under your uniform, no matter which one you receive. For obvious reasons, we do not hand those out "used" for kids to wear during the season, but we want athletes to buy them on their own. They make the uniforms much more comfortable in all areas, as well as add some heat and compression properties to the muscles.

Now, in order to make some people smile, even if they have a uniform they might not be 100% happy with, here are some classic pictures I received when an old friend sent me some old high school memorabilia today. With the distance boys growing their hair out in solidarity, I thought a history lesson on bad hair might be appropriate. Enjoy!

Kate B. and I, posing for our 8th grade formal.
That really was the style of hair in 1991.

Kieran C. and I swimming in a NH lake in the summer of 1994.
I think there was more grease than water in my hair at that point.

Same summer, featuring Marissa C, Jake O, Sam L. and myself.
Working on the mullet, as well as our singing talents!

Norway, 1998, waiting for a train in front of roasting elk.
Again, mostly grease, but how could I hear anything?

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Below are the results (minus HJ and throws) for today's scrimmage. The coaching staff was very pleased with how well everyone competed, there is a lot of talent we can build upon!

Early next week, the coaches will be putting together League relay teams. Remember, relays are coaches discretion, not necessarily the top four in each event. With all the different relays next Saturday, CHAP will be using this meet to continue gathering data, and continuing to see where each athlete excels.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Tonight is Spike Night at Boulder Running Company, DTC, rain or shine or snow or sleet or tornado. I hope to see lots of athletes there, from all disciplines, as proper footwear is a very important part of becoming a great track athlete.

Training Shoes

The one shoe that everyone, thrower to distance kid needs, is a good pair of trainers. You can't practice in skateboarding shoes, or basketball shoes, or Vans. A good pair of properly fitted trainers will become your 90% of the time shoe for practice and training. They will prevent injuries, allow you to train faster and longer, and they are super comfortable as well.

Track Spikes

The next most important shoe is a pair of competition spikes. The specific style of shoe depends on your events, as high jumpers will not wear discus flats. All levels of athletes will need competition shoes, and the best time to get them is tonight, when there are coaches and BRC staff available to set you up perfectly. While you can compete in trainers, you can compete better in spikes.

10k Racing Flats

The last shoes I want to talk about is kind of an in-between shoe. For athletes that will be doing longer intervals, 500 m or longer, spikes are not the best shoe. Nor are trainers. While XC flats will suffice, something with a touch more support and control will be the best in the long run. I have the exact pair pictured, and I love them. For hill repeats, for long tempo repeats, they are a perfect combination of lightness and support.

Footwear is pretty important in track & field. If you take care of your feet, they will take care of you!

Weather in Parker

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My name is Brian Seppala, I'm a teacher and coach in Parker, Colorado. I teach 8th grade science and coach runners. I am married to a beautiful wife, we raise a lovely daughter and handsome son.

The best way to contact me is through email:

bseppala19 [at] gmail.com

Track Meet Order of Events

All events are traditionally run females first. There is rarely a hard time schedule that can be followed. A "rolling schedule" is followed, where the clock is essentially ignored and once an event is up, it is run. In other words, be early, be ready, be patient.